Visually the game looks very slick. 10 Huge environments varying from the beach to an Army base are your tracks, and with the help of guide checkpoints you must compete laps to win the race. Along the way you'll find many obstacles ranging from cliffs to fall off of, and people to bump into. If you bump a person to the point of your vehicle halting, you can be picked up and hurled into the air, loosing valuable race time. Each local stays true to realism, so no over the top power-ups or jumps to perform. This is a good or bad thing, depending on your taste. There are only 3 vehicles to choose from, and slight modifications can be added for greater performance, but basically, what you see is what you get in this title. What you do get is very pretty. Your cars glisten in the sun, and even get dirty in the mud. No damage will be found here, so bump to your hearts content, as you won't suffer any effects to it. Frame rate is very consistent and holds true no matter what the circumstances in the game. While light on the tracks and cars, RC Cars does look nice, and if a sequel hits, hopefully they will concentrate on more locals and vehicle.

Audio is fair, but nothing to scream about. Authentic revving of your RC vehicles engine sounds realistic, but the ambient sounds are minute and almost absent. It would be nice to hear obscenities or at least Loony Toons style swearing thrown in when you connect with a human, but alas they all seem to just be mutes. Throw in some thrash metal from the 80's that sounds like W.A.S.P. or Dio and you've got a package not worth noting in the audio department. If this game is ported to the Xbox, please supply the use of custom soundtracks at least.

RC Cars does do one thing well, and most importantly it plays great. Tight controls that you can even hone to your specific liking make racing bearable and actually fun. The realistic physics will have you sliding and spinning to a great degree if you aren't careful of the obstacles that stand in your way. While the game is basic checkpoint racing, the tracks are long enough to keep interest high when going into the 3rd and final lap. The computer A.I. can be set to one of four skill levels, and each is substantially tougher than the next. On easy, the opponents basically screw up enough to allow you to keep things close, but on tougher settings all the rules are out the window. The game is simple, yet fun and surprisingly addicting.

The biggest complaint I have withthe game is that it is too shallow in the end. Only your basic game play modes are present, with only the championship being the meat of the game. The online play, while solid, is only fun if you can find someone to race. Typically, there aren't people playing this game online, which all but kills any multiplayer fun. There is the option for split screen play if you wish, but the game would be fun if more were online to compete with. Even then there are no scoreboards or online tourneys to compete in, and with the limited amount of cars and tracks, even online play would become stale after a short while. All in all, the game supplies a small host of options that will provide a good weekends worth of play, and that really hurts this otherwise good title.

For its $29.99 price tag, RC Cars is a good buy, but only if you have a friend or two buy it as well. There simply just isn't enough here to merit a purchase otherwise. The game does look good, plays great, but just is too shallow to recommend. Play the demo if you want to see for yourself. RC Cars is good, but far from great. Hopefully there is a sequel in mind that will fix this major issue.